terça-feira, outubro 25

long distance gifts

I've said a million times I love giving and receiving gifts, what you do not know is how much I enjoy sending gifts by mail. People who can not be physically near you can feel closer with these little demonstrations of affection.

Before the holidays (in May), I put two boxes in the mail. One going to NZ and one to the Canary Islands. In three weeks the package arrived in New Zealand. I was very happy and so was the friend who got it.

Time passed, passed, passed, and I heard nothing about the second box. I called Nalu (the "gifted") and she went to the post office to see what was happening. Too bad it was no longer going to be a surprise.

- Nothing here. The package did not even came to Spain yet.

When I returned from my hols in September, I got a call the post office:

- There is a package here for you. Undelivered. Came back to you. From "somewhere".

I went to the post office to try understand what was happening. Here there was, my box full of Arab trinkets.

- What happened?

- When they tried to deliver it, there was nobody at home. The post office then leaves a note to the receiver to come and collect the parcel from the Post office. They wait for a whole month, then if no one shows up, they return the parcel to the sender.

I was intrigued. Of course Nalu would have gone to collect it. And she mentioned she never heard about it, besides, the postal service in Spain tried to trace the parcel and it never crossed the border.

When i took a peek at the package and all the comments written by the destination's post office, i finally understood what happened. Everything was written in French.

- But you sent it to France. Look, it's all in French.

- Oh, Sorry ... this happens a lot. The staff of the post here like to say they have traveled a lot, so when they see a package written in another language they say: "Look, I know that language, I have traveled to this country and can assure you this parcel should be going to this or that country." So other colleagues think that he is well traveled, but in fact he never left the Gulf.

I tried to argue that it was all fun and games, but i paid to send a package to Spain who went tikki touring in France and came right back to me. And now I had to pay to resend it once again. How unfair is that?

But I thought twice, ande decided to let it go.

I picked up my box, I put it under mys arm and came home. I'll try again in a few weeks.